


the lines are fading in my kingdom

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-22
Updated: 2009-01-22
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:02:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: after so many years gone, who does jack remember best?





	

Listen. The minstrels sing,  
In the departed villages. The nightingale,  
Dust in the buried wood, flies on the grains of her wings  
And spells on the winds of the dead his winter's tale.

Excerpt from "A Winter's Tale".  
by Dylan Thomas

Jack always thinks of Ianto when he’s alone now.

It’s funny, to him, to think that of all the souls he’s ever known, Ianto stands out. Ianto Jones was neither the smartest nor the funniest, neither the most attractive nor the most cooperative, and some days Jack just wanted to chuck their relationship out the window, frustrated with the way he was challenged and confronted by such a young, young man, a man who knew nothing of the world by Jack’s outrageous standards. It makes no sense that so many years later it’s average, ordinary Ianto Jones who drifts across his mind, pale Welsh skin and warm piano hands, suits and ties and a cup of excellent coffee. Is that all Ianto was? Obviously not, or Jack wouldn’t remember him so many years later, here on this indefinable hill on an impossible planet – Ianto was more, was clearly so much more.

Ianto Jones was all the things that make Jack feel even remotely normal, and all the things that make Jack feel oh so terribly alone. Ianto was a warm bed after a long, cold day; Ianto was a kiss and control and a touch that knew just where to land. Ianto was music, was jazz, was a lonesome trumpet solo in clear summer air. Silence and chaos and lies and charisma – Ianto was all of these, and none, and Jack thinks about him with the kind of careless smile that steals across him when he hears the distinctive “vworp-vworp” of the TARDIS alighting nearby. Ianto was Jack’s _friend_ , not just his lover, and it’s this that brings Jack the most inexplicable joy.

Fleeting and ephemeral to Jack’s ancient sensibilities, Ianto was and is even more precious than the Doctor himself – for the Doctor returns time and time again to Jack’s memory, always when he least expects it. Jack sometimes wonders if the Doctor actually _looks_ for him, just to find someone who remembers as much as he, but Ianto would never do any such thing, would never pursue Jack just for mindless company or a faceless fuck. He says Ianto is because according to Milton – who he finally read after he met the man but didn’t fuck him because it felt like a crime – according to Milton’s God, all time is now, and by that token even at this moment he has Ianto bent over his desk, sweating and silent; Ianto under soft white sheets, thrashing under Jack’s hands; Ianto on a comfortable and familiar grey sofa, taking a well deserved nap on Jack’s shoulder. Every minute Jack ever spent with Ianto – missing him, wanting him, having him, _loving_ him – every minute is happening right now, in tandem and concert with _this_ minute, in which Jack stands with his coat blowing in the wind the same as it did on the top of the Millennium Centre when he still ran Torchwood, wishing that Ianto were here with him again. He could say that about all of his lovers, but Ianto is special simply because he is in no way unique, no way a singular inhabitant of Jack’s elephantine memory, and that in itself brings him an individuality to be cherished carefully, even if just for tonight.

Jack closes his eyes and thinks that it is fitting to his memory, that Ianto be the first and last of his nighttime introspection. After all, Ianto makes him the man he is today, and the man he was yesterday, and the man he will be tomorrow – and he will stay such until Jack finally finds a way to ascend to the most unreachable stars and tell him so. “Good night,” Jack says out loud, to the memory.

He hears the faintest whisper of “good night” in return.


End file.
